Breakfast Topic: Age boundaries
by Jennie Lees 
Mar 15th 2006 at 7:30AM
Thanks for all your Breakfast Topic
ideas; watch this space, as we will be featuring them in days to come!Today's topic is age. In WoW, you can play characters who fit into a variety of perceived age brackets, from sultry young females to grey-haired older men--you can even play your characters beyond the grave, if that takes your fancy. However, I was shocked the other day to find out that a grey-haired human character was actually played by a teenager. I had automatically conferred some sort of respect on to the character, and the realisation that the player was younger than me took some time to sink in.
On the other hand, sometimes it's easy to tell the age of a character--textual cues and behavioural habits might give it away. I've seen several adverts for "mature" guilds; do you seek out players who are approximately the same age as you? Or do you team up with anyone, even if they might have to leave halfway through to do their homework?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
A.H Mar 15th 2006 8:21AM
"that the player was younger than me took some time to sink in."
Oh beleive me, discovering that the "woman" you're married to in the game is actually a man is a bit harder to grasp. ;)
A.H
jennie Mar 15th 2006 9:56AM
Funnily enough the gender-bending side of things doesn't worry me at all. I guess I'm only recently an ex-teenager (in the grand scheme of things, what's a few years?) so finding mature teenagers always surprises me. Gosh, I'm such a crabby old woman about this!
KSB Mar 15th 2006 11:16AM
it should be like Fable game, that you get older the longer you progress in time, but in WoW's case it should be how high you level up :)
and another thing I loved about Fable is that your character changes his appearance to fit your personality. Evil og good, blue and glowy or red and rotten.
AareDub Mar 15th 2006 2:01PM
I've had a few cases where I assumed someone was older and it came back to bite me.
The other night I was going through Uldaman with a pretty decent group. We were making it through without much trouble. We downed all the bosses except for the final one, and the leader of the group suddenly mentions its almost his bedtime, but maybe he will be allowed a few minutes longer. I still consider myself young, but through the majority of the instance I was drinking beer (legally) and it kinda blew my mind that I was running through it with somebody who still has a strict bedtime.
cdiggy Mar 15th 2006 2:20PM
I am no teenager but it matters not how old a player is so long as they have some skills and aren't rude. Do you discriminate against race? Then why discriminate against age??
Before you reply and try to justify age discrimination say to yourself "Gee, maybe I do discriminate against age." And then make the mental adjustment to give people the benefit of the doubt before you start judging them based on this criteria or that criteria.
good day
Yuuzhan Mar 16th 2006 12:51AM
I started playing MMORG's about 3 years ago, getting sucked in to SWG from the FPS scene by my guild/clan mates. Asa group we are very laid back, mostly in the high 20's to low 40's, with a broad range of nationalities, races, and sex's. As a guild, we have never been that concerned with age, so much as maturity. It is true that we have been bitten, hard on some occasions, by individuals who would be construed as young adults ( mid 10's to 20's), which of course has caused us to be slightly wary of anyone who doesn't know about "school House Rock" " or thinks "Anime" is new and 1337.But we have had some very good experiences with younger people. Its about maturity on their part. I don't believe it has much to do with "leet" speak, or forgetting consonants, but more to do with outlook on life. I met one of the most mature 15yr olds I have ever seen ( I work with teens) playing WoW, and the only reason I found out they were that age was some pointed question son our side pertaining to joining our guild. Sexism, racism, Ethnicism(is that a word?) and ageism is all pretty much the realm of ignorant people. All you can do is lead by example, and try to edumacate those around you.